Art and Seoul

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Corinna is a friend of mine here in Seoul. We paint together and she agreed to let me paint her. She is brave like that!

The whole time I was painting her I kept thinking "Wow, she has beautiful eyes!" or "What perfect skin!" or "I love the color of her hair!" etc. and etc. I think that when you paint someone you have to really look closely at them so you can really see how truly beautiful they are.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Oil 11 x 14 inchesI painted this from a photo I took in Insadong. Insadong is an artsy section of Seoul. I love to go there and walk around, look in the shops and galleries. These bags of herbs are common in Seoul. I am not sure what is in the bags, some look like wood chips or bark and some like large dried mushrooms.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

So much has changed and so much has stayed the same. The biggest change is that I am a Grandma now!!!! I've gone gluten free which has improved my health some, but it is very difficult to do here in Korea. I still love art and painting. I am still in Seoul (till the end of the year)and I still miss my family (especially the Little Guy!)

Now to do some "catch up" posts on Art, and Seoul, and Art in Seoul, and some in Beijing and the USA too.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Two posts in one day! Just trying to catch up a bit. I finished this painting today, well I think it is finished or I am just tired of working on it. It was the view we had from the 10th floor of our hotel/apartment in Insadong. I loved looking out the window -there was something new to see everyday.

I have been off visiting family in the US so nothing has happened here on the blog. It was a good trip - good to go home to the USA and also good to come back to my new "home" in Seoul.

This little painting I did before my trip. It seems like everywhere there are carts selling something. These flowers came from a photo of one of the flower carts in Insadong. I loved the bright colors of the pots and flowers and I wanted something that was not as complicated as the cityscapes I had been working on. I am used to the standard American sizes of canvases and panels, this one is 22 x 16 cm or about 6.25 x 8.75 inches.

Now that we have moved to an apartment with lots of room and windows I now have space to have an "art studio" (a bedroom) to paint in! This is a good thing since I have lots of ideas for paintings and empty walls to hang them on.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Last week we heard about the Underground Market--Of course we have been walking past it for 2 months and it has a big sign that says Underground Market over the entrance. It is even right next door to us. I feel so illiterate.

We went at night so there were not many people there at the time. The above is the entrance to the market, and I have to say that during the day it is even darker, doesn't look at all like an inviting market.

It was huge inside. I didn't get a lot of pictures because all of the shopkeepers were ready and waiting to sell us something. We quickly found that if you picked up something you were expected to buy it. We were looking at a bag of what we thought might be a bag of generic peanut M&M's. Out of no where came a shopkeeper to collect payment. They were not M&M's, we didn't care for them so Jay took them to work.

We saw everything from peppers to pigs heads to pianos--sorry no pictures of the pigs heads.

More Peppers

And even more peppers. Korean food is very spicy!

I wish I could have gotten more pictures - there was a restaurant down there, and butcher shops, fruit and vegetables, household goods, clothing and shoes.

There were lots and lots of dishes! I think you could find almost anything down there if you look hard enough. I want to go back to shop but Jay will have to come to carry everything.

This is one of many streets in Seoul. I find that because all the signs are in Korean I have to look at everything more carefully. I am trying to learn the Korean Hangul (alphabet) I feel like I am back in Kindergarten. I can sound out some of the words but still don't know what most of them mean. The yellow sign on the right is the "Good Restaurant" menu. It does have bulgogi (which is very good), and kimchi (which I think is more of an acquired taste), listed but I couldn't figure out the rest.

World Clocks

About Me

My husband called me one day and said "What do you think about living in Seoul?" I hadn't ever thought about it before, we had already thought about Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai China, and Germany, and others I have since forgotten. I don't think I took him seriously at the time but everything fell into place and here we are in Seoul, South Korea!